AURORA — The rundown hotels have been demolished. Most of the mobile homes are history, and so is the asbestos that came with many of them.

Now, 1 1/2 years after the Anschutz Medical Campus opened on the former Fitzsimons Army base, developers are finalizing financing and say they plan to break ground in the next few months.

Finally.

So what’s in store for the former eyesore of a strip on the south side of East Colfax Avenue from Peoria Street to Interstate 225?

Think residential, retail, hotels and more along the stretch of Colfax across from the medical campus that is now home to the University of Colorado Hospital, Children’s Hospital and coming soon, the new Veterans Affairs Hospital.

“You have a built-in economic machine right across the street,” said Otis Moore, principal of Westside Investment Partners, which is developing 31 acres of retail, residential and two hotels there. “The credit crisis certainly set us back, and the initial financing is taking longer than expected. But we hope to be breaking ground in the next 30 to 60 days.”

This is welcome news to city officials, who want to cash in on the financial boon the campus and surrounding development will provide.

The 578-acre medical campus will employ 32,000 when fully built out, and those workers will need places to eat, shop and live.

Westside Investment’s first phase will be a 155-room Springhill Suites, an extended-stay hotel. Another hotel is also planned, complete with a large conference center — a place city officials have been dying to see get built so Aurora can lure big-time conferences.

Another phase calls for 865 residential units for sale and rent. The company plans to build a pedestrian plaza there, with 150,000 square feet of retail and up to 200,000 square feet of offices.

The Fitzsimons Promenade project is almost ready to roll too, on East Colfax near Peoria. At buildout, it will be a 45,000-square-foot, high-density retail development. Troy Smith, vice president of development for Bush Development, said the company has already secured a Qdoba Mexican Grill and a 7-Eleven, and is in discussions for a bank.

Aurora’s urban renewal manager, Andrea Amonick, said only the Capris Village trailer park has yet to be cleared, because the owner has not submitted definite plans.

“Once the capital markets free up, I think people will be pleased at the rate of development,” Amonick said.

Carlos Illescas had been with The Denver Post since 1997 before leaving in June 2016. He had worked as a reporter covering the suburbs and was a weekend editor. He previously worked for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Aspen Daily News and graduated from Colorado State University in 1991.

The owners of Boulder’s Sterling University Peaks apartments, who this summer were cited for illegally subdividing 92 bedrooms in the complex, have reached an agreement to settle the case for $410,000, the city announced Thursday.